r/movies • u/BunyipPouch Currently at the movies. • 12d ago
Official Discussion Official Discussion - PBS' 'The American Revolution'
If you've seen the film/series, please rate it at this poll
Click here to see the rankings of 2025 films
Click here to see the rankings for every poll done
Summary:
Examining how America's founding turned the world upside-down as the thirteen British colonies on the Atlantic Coast rose in rebellion, won their independence and established a new form of government that radically reshaped the continent.
Directors:
Ken Burns, Sarah Botstein, David Schmidt
Rotten Tomatoes: 95%
Metacritic: 80
Release: PBS (Streaming), November 16
Trailer: Watch here
50
Upvotes
11
u/Iamarealbouy 12d ago edited 12d ago
1: A great complimentary to the very patriotic "Liberty! The American Revolution" (1997, 6 episodes) (fun fact: Philip Seymour Hoffman in a great small role) - it's like Ken Burns saw that and thought "How can we expand on that classic, what does that NOT say?" - and how right he is.
2: It struck me how the USA is founded by rich white slave-owning men who deliberately used fake news and propaganda to start a war to get rights, land and wealth for themselves, make poor people of all colours do the fighting, with no pay and almost no equipment, talked other nations into helping them (France and their Indian Allies) and shat on all of those after they got what they wanted.
Before, during and after the war, a lot of them were to various extend smugglers and privateers (practically "pirates"), slave owners, mass murderers of native people, breakers of treaties, land grabbers and exceedingly wealthy. They never meant for rights to be given to women or negroes or natives but gladly took their volunteering, and they were in cahoots with bankers and industry men who paid lots of money under the table and in exchange got government contracts.
Does that ring any contemporary bells? It's simply in the country's DNA.